How To Hide The “Back to App” Button In iOS 9

iOS has always lacked a streamlined solution for backwards navigation. Although many fans would argue that it isn’t needed, users shifting over to Apple’s mobile OS from competing platforms Android or Windows Mobile are bound to feel the absence of the Back button, having to either return to the Home screen or repeatedly launch the app switcher to navigate between apps.

With iOS 9, Apple tried to solve this problem by adding breadcrumbs to the navigation that occurs between apps through links. For example, if you tap a Twitter link in Safari, iOS 9 takes you to the Twitter app and displays a Back to Twitter shortcut in the top-left corner, right within the status bar. It’s a handy little addition, especially for conjoining apps like Facebook and Messenger or Foursquare and Swarm, but hardly the perfect way to implement it. The “Back to App” link is hard to reach, hides WiFi and carrier signal strength, and could actually come in the way if you were to accidentally tap it while dragging down the Notification Center.

Apparently, one iOS developer had similar thoughts on the matter and decided to create a system tweak for jailbroken devices that lets you dismiss said link with a simple leftward swipe, replacing it with the status indicators normally visible in the top-left corner. It’s called BreadcrumbsAway.

If you’re device is jailbroken on iOS 9, you can download the tweak from the BigBoss repo of the Cydia store for free. It doesn’t create an entry within the Settings app and has no options to configure. Once the installation is done and you’ve restarted the Springboard, the tweak will become active.

The only way to disable it would be to uninstall it from Cydia’s Installed tab, but you probably won’t need to even if you do have a change of heart, since it doesn’t permanently remove the “Back to App” shortcut; it simply offers a way to hide it temporarily.

Update: A new, free tweak called BreadCrumbArrow achieves roughly the same result, but without completely hiding the “Back to App” link. Installing the tweak only hides the text part of the link, leaving the arrow behind and making room for signal and WiFi strength indicators. This way, you can still make use of the shortcut without losing sight of status bar info. The tweak is available on Cydia’s BigBoss repo.

If you’re looking to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 9, are new to the concept or are running into issues with the process, head on over to our detailed iOS 9 – 9.0.2 jailbreak guide.

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